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Ironic: Global Warmists Trapped in Ice

12/31/2013

MV Akademik Shokalskiy stuck in ice

WE're not celebrating their misfortune, and we hope they all get out okay, but this is just too ironic not to bring it to your attention:

Michelle Malkin notes on her blog,

"Australian climate change professor Chris Turney, passengers and media hoping to get pictures penguins windsurfing where ice should be set out on an expedition to demonstrate the effects of global warming on Antarctica. The ship and all on board have now been trapped in ice for almost a week and counting".

Climate scientists are still trying to prove the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis, evidently after having missed the memo that the Earth hasn't warmed for some fifteen to seventeen years. Some climate scientists are even predicting a cooling trend. Nature seems to abhor an agenda even more than it abhors a vacuum.

Penguin not doing the backstroke

The Daily Mail Online reports,

"The Academic Shokalskiy set off from New Zealand on November 28 to recreate a 100-year-old Australasia expedition first sailed by Sir Douglas Mawson to see how the journey changes using new technology and equipment.

But on Wednesday morning, the boat hit a mass of thick ice sheets and today remains at a stand still.

Chris Turney, an Australian professor who helped organise the voyage on the Russian ship, yesterday posted a photograph on Twitter apparently showing the Chinese vessel, a speck on the horizon beyond an expanse of ice."

In the Antarctic summer of 1912, this same waterway was not encumbered by ice:

WE wonder if the Turney expedition got some bad information, or if the weather suddenly turned colder than expected for Antarctic summers in the 21st century. Although WE understand that weather and climate are not the same thing, the irony isn't lost on us either.

(Read the Michelle Malkin article...) (Read the Mail Online article... -- nice pictures!)

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Weekly Standard, "But What Is The Reality of It?"

12/29/2013

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Just as WE hear that quite a few Whatcom County citizens of all political stripes have lost their healthcare plans here, the Weekly Standard posted a short piece about a New York Times feature, that in the Big Apple elite Obamacare supporters are feeling "mugged by reality" as they lose their own health plans and access to doctors:

‘But What Is the Reality of It?’
William Kristol, Editor
December 30 - January 6, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 16

If you have a taste for Schadenfreude (and who doesn’t, especially in this holiday season?), you’ll enjoy Anemona Hartocollis’s article in the New York Times of December 14. Here’s the opening paragraph:

Many in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it.

The article goes on to detail the Obamacare-induced travails of members of New York’s “creative classes” (a phrase the Times fails to put in quotation marks) and concludes:

“We are the Obama people,” said Camille Sweeney, a New York writer and member of the Authors Guild. Her insurance is being canceled, and she is dismayed that neither her pediatrician nor her general practitioner appears to be on the exchange plans. What to do has become a hot topic on Facebook and at dinner parties frequented by her fellow writers and artists.

“I’m for it,” she said. “But what is the reality of it?”

Ms. Sweeney’s statement-and-question says it all. It’s the voice of liberalism in the age of Obama. She’s for Obamacare, but didn’t know what it was. Now, Ms. Sweeney realizes (sort of) that she’s been mugged by reality. But she’s not quite ready to come to grips with reality. She’s not quite ready to press charges against Obama, or against liberalism.

But at least she’s asking a reality-based question.

In 2014, it’s the job of conservatism, and of the Republican party, to answer Ms. Sweeney’s question. It’s the job of conservatives and Republicans to explain the reality of Obamacare—that it’s bad for health care, bad for jobs, and bad for freedom. It’s the job of conservatives and Republicans to offer escapes from Obamacare, to the extent possible (see the piece by Jeffrey H. Anderson and Spencer Cowan in this issue). It’s the job of conservatives and Republicans to set forth workable alternatives to Obamacare for the future, as Paul Ryan and others intend to do early in the new year.

And it’s the job of conservatives and Republicans to press charges. It’s their job to make the case against Obamacare on the broadest possible terms, as an example—as the example—of unintended-consequences-producing, rule-of-law-undermining, freedom-denying, big-government, liberal social-engineering. Obamacare embodies liberalism’s fatal conceit. It’s the job of conservatives and Republicans to make it liberalism’s fatal overreach.

So, to answer Ms. Sweeney’s question: The reality of it is that Obamacare is a disaster. And it’s a disaster because, as Margaret Thatcher put it, “The facts of life are conservative.”

If conservatives and Republicans can explain the facts of life in a language intelligible to contemporary Americans, the year 2014 could be an inflection point in the saga of modern American liberalism, modern American conservatism, and modern American politics. It could be a moment of genuine hope and positive change. Perhaps, to adapt a rhetorical flourish, generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when the rise of the nanny state began to slow and our nation began to heal. It could be the moment when we regain our footing and find our way back to the always difficult but ultimately rewarding path of individual liberty, honorable self-government, and national greatness.

Not to be cold hearted, but this was a surprise, how?

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Christmas Firewall - Nation of Desire, Bill Whittle

12/25/2013

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All that said, perhaps you'll enjoy watching the U.S. Air Force Band in its first ever flash mob performance, at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's "Milestones of Flight" gallery on December 3 which began with an original arrangement of Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" then "Joy to the World,"

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Best Available Science | One Earth Year: Not Your Father's 365.25*

12/16/2013

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Take a few minutes to learn about celestial mechanics and the eccentricity of Earth's orbit. The Earth's orientation to the Sun changes constantly. Orbital distance and the planet's tilt (celestial mechanics) drive weather, the seasons, and climate. Almost all of the eccentricity of Earth's orbit is related to the gravitational effect of other planets. This short video is eye candy, and brain food. (Read more below the video.) Turn your SOUND ON and enjoy the ride.

If the Earth were the only planet orbiting our Sun, the eccentricity of its orbit would not perceptibly vary even over a period of a million years. The Earth's eccentricity varies primarily due to interactions with the gravitational fields of Jupiter and Saturn. As the eccentricity of the orbit evolves, the semi-major axis of the orbital ellipse remains unchanged. From the perspective of the perturbation theory used in celestial mechanics to compute the evolution of the orbit, the semi-major axis is an adiabatic invariant. According to Kepler's third law the period of the orbit is determined by the semi-major axis. It follows that the Earth's orbital period, the length of a sidereal year, also remains unchanged as the orbit evolves. As the semi-minor axis is decreased with the eccentricity increase, the seasonal changes increase. But the mean solar irradiation for the planet changes only slightly for small eccentricity, due to Kepler's second law.

The Moon also exerts force that causes tides and other perturbations. All these factors change constantly, but long term cycles have been identified, and the relationship of celestial mechanics to life as we know it is important to understand.

Celestial mechanics affect the length of days, years, and seasons - these vary more than most folks are aware of:

The relative increase in solar irradiation at closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) compared to the irradiation at the furthest distance (aphelion) is slightly larger than four times the eccentricity. For the current orbital eccentricity this amounts to a variation in incoming solar radiation of about 6.8%, while the current difference between perihelion and aphelion is only 3.4% (5.1 million km). Perihelion presently occurs around January 3, while aphelion is around July 4. When the orbit is at its most elliptical, the amount of solar radiation at perihelion will be about 23% more than at aphelion.

More info on these terms: analemma, axial precession, sidereal year, tropical year, anomalistic year

Learn about Earth's movement through the heavens matter (what a ride!) and things like the "Milankovitch Cycle" (pros and cons) at NASA and Wikipedia and points beyond.

Is everything known about this topic, and does everyone agree? Heck no, that's the beauty part of science. It's a process, not an end in itself which is best because there are all sorts of undiscovered and unanticipated objects and phenomena out there in the great beyond. We keep refining instruments and research methods, and new discoveries are made by the boldest thinkers that improve on well developed and long tested theories. Inquiring minds can research and build on all this by "standing on the shoulders of giants" like Copernicus, Newton, Galileo, and Kepler.

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* FYI - the reference to "Your Father's 365.25" relates to the Julian calendar. Wiki says:

A year (Old English gēar, Gothic jēr, Runic Jēran) is the orbital period of the Earth moving around the Sun. For an observer on the Earth, this corresponds to the period it takes the Sun to complete one course throughout the zodiac along the ecliptic.

In astronomy, the Julian year is a unit of time, defined as 365.25 days of 86400 SI seconds each (no leap seconds).[1]

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A Cautionary Tale - Over the Top?

12/14/2013

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The George Orwell novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four was published in 1949. At that time, it was considered fiction. What was once fiction is now real. Today (judging by their behavior), all too many elected officials consider the novel more of a handbook: "Tyranny for Dummies". Maybe WE should count our blessings that we got 10 or 20 good years past the eponymous year in question.

Anyway, WE noticed that one of our readers posted over on Kakistocracy Report, a parody that has been circulating on the internet about the Orwell characters, Winston and Julia in the book 1984, framed in what could be the not too distant future...

"Winston, come into the dining room, it's time to eat," Julia yelled to her husband. "In a minute, honey, it's a tie score," he answered.

Actually Winston wasn't very interested in the traditional holiday football game between Detroit and Washington. Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports Statute of 2017, outlawing tackle football for its "unseemly violence" and the "bad" example it sets for the rest of the world", Winston was far less of a football fan than he used to be. Two-hand touch wasn't nearly as exciting.

Yet, it wasn't the game that Winston was uninterested in. It was more the thought of eating another Tofu Turkey. Even though it was the best type of Veggie Meat available after the government revised the American Anti-Obesity Act of 2018, adding fowl to the list of federally-forbidden foods, (which already included potatoes, cranberry sauce, and mincemeat pie), it wasn't anything like real turkey.

And ever since the government officially changed the name of "Thanksgiving Day" to "A National Day of Atonement" in 2020, to officially acknowledge the Pilgrims' historically brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster.

(Continue reading...)

The author adds some of his own commentary about the cumulative effects of progressivism:

... we have not reduced poverty; we have institutionalized it. We've created a dependent underclass. We've reduced self-respect. We've increased crime. We've reduced upward mobility. We've reduced liberty. Then, there's this from Bill Whittle:

If WE don't raise awareness, who will? As the album title goes, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits.

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Tales of Tyranny - Another Episode

12/13/2013

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Bureaucratic pressure has become pretty serious here, where crimes against the bureaucracy can cost a fortune, and even land you in jail. What kinds of crimes? Environmental crimes, like not filing a Farm Plan or not obtaining a Ground Disturbance Permit before digging a hole on your property. But most victims are too afraid to fight back. Decent people are bullied into submission. And a growing number of fines and extortion demands loom as mitigation banks and the "resources marketplace" are being set-up all around us, as a huge new financial industry. WE think this county's becoming a green jail... But we're not alone.

Some people think WE overuse the word "tyranny". From Google:
tyr·an·ny
ˈtirənē/ noun

cruel and oppressive government or rule.
"people who survive war and escape tyranny"
synonyms: despotism, absolute power, autocracy, dictatorship, totalitarianism, Fascism;

It seems pretty cut-and-dried to us. Tyranny is just bureaucrats abusing power, taking peoples' liberty and jerking them around; like this:

Tales of Tyranny: Criminalizing Poverty in the San Juans - The Errol Speed Story
by Glen Morgan
December 11, 2013

From the front gate of Errol and Kathleen Speed’s 20-acre Orcas Island farm, they can glimpse a small stand of evergreen trees, an open meadow and their own, fenced organic garden.

What they can’t see is why the local governing authority, San Juan County inWashington State, has chosen to treat them like criminals for committing what appear to be minor building code infractions.

Like many rural Washington residents, the Speeds live “off the grid” in a small trailer on the property they share with their horse, goats, and chickens. They are neither wealthy, nor are they hardened criminals.

Consequently, they never expected to be subjected to a search warrant, charged with a criminal offense, tried before a jury of their peers, and sentenced to actual jail time for minor code violations involving their own property.

The driving force behind Errol and Kathleen Speed’s nightmare is the bureaucrats’ relentless effort to criminalize minor infractions and victimless crimes. The Speed family’s experience is just the latest example, but it demonstrates the pointlessness of this over-criminalization effort by Big Government.

According to San Juan County law enforcement officials, the couple’s great crime was to erect a small building on their property, believing that structures less than 1,000 square feet were exempt from permit and building code requirements. They also committed the great crime of having a bed, blankets, a couch, and a kitchen in this building.

They also used a composting toilet.

For their trouble, the Speeds endured a police raid of their property (using a criminal search warrant), a jury court trial, thousands of dollars in fines, and a 180-day jail sentence for Errol Speed. Not coincidentally, the county has spent tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money prosecuting the case.

“We built an accessory agricultural building with the understanding that we could build a building under 1,000 square feet with no fees, no permits and no plans,” Kathleen Speed said. “Normally in code violations, you work with the Planning Department and negotiate after the fact, and maybe there are additional fees. But in our case, we’ve been criminalized and treated as if we robbed a bank.”

“The justification for using a criminal search warrant was (that) we denied them (government officials) access,” Errol Speed said. “They never asked for access.”

While the couple doesn’t deny being in violation of at least some part of the code, the reality is that most people run afoul of some ordinance or minor law every day. Disputing these details hardly justifies the effort San Juan County has made to prosecute the Speeds.

In the area of home ownership and private property, few properties are immune to potential violations. In modern times, most people have become numb to the ever-expanding ordinances and the new thousands of pages of rules and regulations that apply to every property owner in the local jurisdiction.

In most cases, there is little concern over these ordinances because it would take a police state to actually enforce them, and most people feel they could appeal to common sense or pay a small fine to resolve the problem.

From left - Prosecutor Randy Gaylord, San Juan County Sheriff Rob Nou, Judge Stewart Andrew

The complicity of at least three elected officials is needed to formally charge Errol Speed for committing a crime. These include San Juan County Sheriff Rob Nou (elected in 2010), San Juan County Prosecutor Randall Gaylord, and San Juan County District Court Judge Stewart Andrew. Without the formal sign-off and approval by all three of these elected officials, the Speed family could not be criminally prosecuted. If even one of these elected officials believed that prosecuting the Speed family was not a priority, they could have stopped this criminal trial from even starting. San Juan County does have real crime problems. At least four people have died of heroin overdoses in just the past 12 months, but apparently prosecuting the Speed family is more important to these elected officials.

Andrew was originally a California attorney who relocated to San Juan County and has been a judge since 1998. Gaylord has been in office for 20 years, and he is best remembered for his successful effort to ban personal watercraft in San Juan County in 1996 and for his failed effort to suppress free speech in 2005 when he filed suit against local radio talk show hosts for opposing a gas tax increase.

In 2010, the Heritage Foundation published a booklet titled, “One Nation Under Arrest,” (co-authored by the Freedom Foundation’s Trent England), detailing many cases around the country of an explosion of laws—federal, state and local—which have created thousands of new “crimes” that can justify criminal search warrants, jury trials and jail time.

No victims or common sense are necessary in this process. Errol Speed discovered what it’s like to personally experience a “Crime Against Bureaucracy” in San Juan County.

Unfortunately, he isn't likely to be the last.

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In the Why Bother Department - Puppet Council Keels

12/10/2013

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Whatcom County Council proved how irrelevant it has become institutionally tonight. Our legislature is toast. It's become a puppet show. The balance of power has tipped.

In a hotly contested 4-3 vote, they decided to turn-down a motion proffered by council member Barbara Brenner that one of our elected representatives should participate with other interests on the Planning Unit in local watershed planning. What she suggested was that council, which serves as our countywide Flood Control Zone District Board of Supervisors, should take a government seat on this state-recognized local effort which has serious work on its plate. The Flood Control Zone District gets millions in taxpayer money annually that drains into the county "natural resources" budget, and it's a government agency in its own right. (WRIA Watchers long since discovered that most of this water related money drains into the county executive's staff salaries and to consultants, with only a pittance directed to actual flood control anything.)

Back to the story. When Brenner's idea was defeated (voted down by wafflers Carl Weimer and Ken Mann, plus the notoriously feckless Sam Crawford and lame duck Kathy Kershner), council then voted to ask permission – permission! – of the "IG's" to participate. What or who are the IG's? They're the Joint Board, made up of the Mayor of Bellingham, the manager of Whatcom County PUD #1, the two tribes (Lummi and Nooksack shake-down artists) and Whatcom County’s head boy, executive Jack Louws. Council has been told they would have to ask their permission, and maybe get to sit with the JB's "staff" people.

This is a far cry from what state law says about local watershed planning. It's supposed “to provide local citizens with the maximum possible input concerning their goals and objectives for water resource management and development," "ensuring that the state's water resources are used wisely, by protecting existing water rights, by protecting instream flows for fish, and by providing for the economic well-being of the state's citizenry and communities."

Council as the Board of Supervisors has been picking up the tab for the lion's share of expenditures for years. Council used to say it wanted an open, inclusive process that favored no special interest or to favor some individuals over others.

Fast forward (through incremental usurpations of authority) to now: Council has become so weak it was told to come on bended knee, that they have to ask to be involved in business central to life as we know it, and they accepted the slap-down. Louws said they might be allowed to participate if it suits the Joint Board's goals, whatever those are.

We – the people – can’t rely on this county council. They've been sidelined, with no role in water planning. Most of this council doesn't have the horse sense to understand their most important duty of all, which is to guarantee due process, defensible work, and fair handedness.

They’ve abandoned the public to the whims of the five hungry wolves, who've been draining millions in tax money from county citizens every year and achieved zilch, zero, nada, bupkis in the way of a real water plan.

You might think that the lousy treatment given Kathy Kershner by the left after her reconveyance vote (strategically intended to secure her re-election?), should have been an object lesson in playing hardball on the council. She should get behind the idea that the council is supposed to represent the people's interest against the increasingly insular and bureaucratic executive branches and lawsuit-happy enviro-trolls.

Stop and consider what this latest council put-down means to citizens. Our legislators were told point-blank that they have to go to Kelli and Jack and Jilk and the tribes when for ten years or more that group has refused to let their deals be known or for their "staff's" work to be reality checked. The last thing they want is checks and balances.

Do we have a completed watershed plan, solid information in hand that everyone can rely on? Is there any empirical evidence of how much water there is, where it is, or how it should be put to best use? More important, should the public have any confidence that our water resources will be fairly allocated when all the power's in the hands of this unrestrained little oligarchy? Heck no. The JB or IG's (the wolves) control the testing, the numbers, the works. No peeking behind the curtain!

Open, fair-handed, and realistic watershed planning has been thwarted once again, and Louws made it clear tonight that the "IG's" as they call themselves have no intention of giving up their greedy monopoly. Clearly, the public has not a snowball's chance of being heard.

Power is a very dangerous commodity in the hands of an unaccountable few. Council made it clear tonight they have neither the appetite nor the savvy to confront the status quo. King Jack let them know who rules this county. The citizens are S.O.L.

WE have quoted Thomas Sowell more than once, and its time to reflect on this priceless quote again:

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or dangerous way of making decisions than putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

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Water, water every where - Nor any drop to drink

12/6/2013

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WE suppose you know that northwest Washington is a rain forest. What you may not know is that some people are trying to gin up the idea that water is scarce around here; that we're on the brink of a water shortage (or something), and (wait for it) that water needs to be rationed by a cadre of self-appointed busybodies and shake-down artists. Radical curtailment of both access to water and land use are being actively discussed right here in Whatcom County. Is there a target on private landowner's backs? Yes, indeed there is.

WE suppose further that you know water isn't consumed; it's recycled. Every drop of water that has ever been drunk, polluted, used to generate electricity, irrigate crops, or anything else - is still present on planet Earth. We're drinking the same water that was swallowed and subsequently peed out by Jesus Christ, Sir Isaac Newton, Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin and millions of others. Mother Nature is the greatest recycler of all.

Well (no pun intended), WE were alerted to this story (it's about Skagit County, but don't think Whatcom County is very far behind; it isn't):

Got WATER ? Maybe Not

Private water well owners' rights were just usurped by a WA Supreme Court case decision. For now, the Department of Ecology says they will not shut down anyone’s private well. What about in the future? If the State controls private water rights they control much, much more.

This petition may make it around to various lists, but sign it once and pass it on through email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. A maximum number of signatures is needed to impress upon our state senators and representatives that corrective legislation is needed. Our neighbors in rural Skagit County and throughout the state have a right to the water on their land.

Please sign the petition in support of basic legal access to water for rural citizens in the Skagit Watershed. We support a balanced approach, but it must include water for tax-paying citizens!

Please send this to everyone (including organization membership lists) you know that are supportive of water for rural farmers and landowners across the state. While our problem here presents a unique set of past circumstances, it is a statewide issue. Let our legislators know we need a legislative solution now.

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